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Gold/Mining/Energy : Starpoint Gold -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: john mcknight who wrote (2229)	7/3/1999 4:27:00 AM
From: john mcknight	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2378

Hi All. Carswell just posted this on Stockhouse v.sts forum ,further confirmation regards john African Ministers Set To Adopt Congo Peace Accord Full Coverage Congo Peace Talks By Buchizya Mseteka LUSAKA (Reuters) - African ministers are set to adopt a breakthrough peace accord in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It aims to reestablish Kinshasa's control over the whole of Africa's third largest country by merging three separate rebel forces with the government army, a rebel leader said. Zambian Presidential Affairs Minister Eric Silwamba told Reuters that the ministers from the 14 Southern African Development Community nations as well as Rwanda, Uganda and Libya would meet at 0700 GMT Saturday in the Zambian capital Lusaka to adopt the agreement reached Friday. He said the ministers would also announce a date, expected to be in the next few days, for heads of state to assemble in Lusaka. Once convened, the regional summit will put a formal end to 11 months of turmoil in former Zaire -- a conflict which sucked half a dozen neighbor states into dubious battle in Africa's third largest country. ''Everything has now been finalized. The Congolese have agreed among themselves and will be meeting at nine in the morning to adopt their report and announce a cease-fire date,'' Silwamba said. Silwamba said the heads of state, who have been on standby for the past week, would fly to Lusaka once a date was agreed. The brutal war in the heart of Africa -- in part a spin-off from the Hutu-Tutsi conflict that spawned the Rwanda genocide of 1994 -- is hampering badly needed growth and investment on the world's poorest continent. The war has displaced at least 500,000 people internally and driven some 200,000 refugees from the country, according to United Nations estimates. The rebels are backed by the armies of Rwanda and Uganda while Kabila has received support from Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia and Chad. Friday's agreement followed landmark direct talks between Congolese Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Yerodia and representatives of envoys of all three rebel groups battling to topple President Laurent Kabila. The six-hour talks were the most prominent meeting between a senior Congolese official and rebels waging the 11-month war against Kabila's rule. Both sides to the war hailed Friday's accord. Yerodia said it enshrined his government's authority over the whole of the nation's territory. ''I can tell you that I am very satisfied,'' Yerodia told Radio France Internationale. ''We arrived at formulations on which we are all agreed -- the necessity for the signing of a cease-fire, extension of authority of the state of the Democratic Republic of the Congo on all national territory,'' he said. ''After the signing of the cease-fire accord, all (rebel forces) who are on occupied national territory, including our own (armed) Congolese brothers, have no further reason to be there,'' Yerodia said. He said the accord included modalities for their withdrawl, but he did not elaborate. Bizima Karaha, security chief for the rebel Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), told Reuters the Congolese parties would present their agreement Saturday to African defense and foreign ministers who have been in Lusaka for the peace talks for a week. ''We have resolved our differences in regard to the question of a national army and jurisdiction by the government over rebel territory,'' Karaha said. Karaha said they had agreed a new national army would be created out of the three rebel forces and government troops and that rebel territory would be returned to government control after the creation of a new army. They also agreed that direct talks between Kabila and the rebel leaders would be an extension of the Lusaka peace process.